Abstract

Agriculture has a predominant role not only for food grains to the people but also supplies raw materials to the industries and it is considered as integral part of social, culture, tradition, and combination of all walks of life in the district. The present paper focuses on the problems and prospects of agriculture in the Shimoga District of Karnataka especially on major production problems faced by the farmers. The production problems like quality seeds are not available, sources of irrigation non-available in time; supply of power is insufficient, non-availability of labour in the peak period, literacy rate of the farmers is very low, farmers depended on local moneylenders etc. The paper highlights on the prospects of agriculture, such as plantation and horticulture, dairy farming, mushroom, organic farming etc. The multistage random sampling methodology was followed to collect the primary data. The statistical tool used for testing hypothesis is chi-square test. It is significant at 5% level of significance that there is an association between production and the problem of agricultural products. (P<0.001). The sustainability of agriculture is possible where there is need for perfect synergy between public and private sectors, civil society organizations in the society.